April 2010 | Bigg Success

milestones We recently went on vacation. It was our first real vacation since we started BIGG Success over two-and-a-half years ago.

We did take a staycation about this same time last year. But our business is home-based and we both love our work. So, while we did have more downtime than usual, we pretty much worked through it.

So we were ready to get away!

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn discuss reaching milestones while on vacation on The Bigg Success Show! Click the player to listen [7:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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You can push and push and push. At some point, however, it becomes counterproductive. You have to give yourself a break.

We set some parameters for our vacation:
We wanted to go someplace warm.
We wanted to be near BIGG water.
We didn’t want the hassle of flying.

We entertained the idea of visiting some friends. But we realized we needed time for ourselves, to reconnect as a couple in life as well as in business.

So we ended up going to Panama City Beach, Florida. We were a little worried about Spring Breakers, but it was the tail end of Spring Break. So it wasn’t much of a factor.

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George Krueger We had a great room … our balcony was a stone’s throw away from the Gulf. We spent a lot of time on our balcony and walking on the beach just enjoying the beauty of nature, BIGG water and time together to connect.

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Mary-Lynn Foster We had a great time. It was so relaxing … I almost started feeling hypnotized toward the end of our time there. I've uploaded some vacation pictures on our Flickr page.

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Now you may be asking, “What does this have to do with BIGG success?

Set direction to create milestones

Well, we’re really talking about BIGG success. BIGG success is life on your own terms. It’s about entrepreneuring your life … designing and building your life to perfectly fit you. It’s about setting milestones.

Venture capitalists demand that the entrepreneurs they fund have goals with due dates. That’s a milestone. If the entrepreneur hits the milestone, the venture capitalist will keep funding him or her. It keeps the entrepreneurs pushing to the next maker.

You can’t create milestones until you set your direction. We decided our ultimate destination was Panama City Beach, Florida.

Milestones must allow for response

But Panama City is a long way from Champaign, Illinois. That’s why you set milestones. It helps keep you on track – both in terms of focus and time management – as you push for your ultimate objective.

Our first milestone was Huntsville, Alabama. We planned to make it that far on our first day. It was a little more than half-way between Champaign and Panama City.

We front-loaded it so we could coast to the coast on our second day of driving!

We thought if we left home by 10 in the morning, we would hit Huntsville around 6 that evening. But a funny thing happened.

We got to the Huntsville area a little earlier than expected. But we would have had to divert a few miles off our path to stay there. Neither MapQuest nor our map had made this fully clear. So we pressed on to Birmingham.

There’s the lesson for entrepreneuring your life. No matter how carefully you plan, new information will come to light. You have to remain flexible so you can respond to it. We had essentially reached our milestone but we felt good about pressing on a little further.

The next morning, we were excited about reaching our destination. Traffic was pretty heavy at times starting in Montgomery, Alabama. So the drive on the second day took a little longer than we expected.

But we had left earlier than planned. And we had traveled further the first day than planned. So we got to see BIGG water by 3:30 in the afternoon … a little earlier than expected.

Be prepared to change anything

But there was an error in our thinking. Have you spotted it yet?

We defined our ultimate destination as Panama City Beach, Florida. But the real destination was a round trip … to Panama City and back home safely.

We knew that, of course, but we hadn’t explicitly thought of it that way.

So it goes with entrepreneuring your life. Be prepared to change anything, including your destination. You will learn as you go along. Take your new knowledge and make any necessary corrections along the way to BIGG success.

There was a greater reward in seeing the whole trip instead of just thinking of it as a trip to Panama City Beach. Because we realized that we didn’t want to just push to get home. We wanted to see something different. We were even willing to drive a little more. We decided to come back through Memphis, Tennessee.

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Reward yourself when you reach a milestone

We knew it would be a real push to get to Memphis on the first day of the drive back. We also wanted to spend all the time we could walking beside the Gulf before we left Panama City Beach. So this next milestone was going to be a challenge.

But it was worth it!

It took a little longer than we expected to get there because we had two-lane roads for part of the trip. We were pretty tired as we pulled into Memphis around 8 that evening.

But as soon as we got out onto Beale Street, it was totally worth it! When you reach a milestone, reward yourself!

The next morning we reached our goal – we made it back home safely. We reached BIGG success … one milestone at a time!

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00576-041910.mp3

(Image in today's post by dzm)

reach bigg success We were thrilled recently to virtually speak at the first ever Career Camp LA. Our friend, Douglas E. Welch, who is one of the organizers of Career Camp LA, arranged for us to be piped in to the conference via Skype. That’s why we said “virtually speak”.

We had a great time chatting with the wonderful people at the conference and we can’t thank Douglas enough for the opportunity.

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn discuss synergizing the five elements of BIGG Success on The Bigg Success Show! Click the player to listen [6:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Today, we thought we’d share with you a portion of what we talked about. The title of our talk was Your Career, Your Terms. (*This link takes you to the video of our entire presentation.)

A human tendency to isolate

If you’re a regular listener, you know that we say BIGG success is life on your own terms. There are five elements of BIGG success – money, time, growth, work and play.

We often try to isolate these terms. For example, we may think about our career and our time, but not both simultaneously.

Walking the dog costs money

Consider a goofy little example. Let’s say you want to walk your dog every day. It’s a little treat you want for yourself. If it’s really important to you, you may think about a career that gives you that flexibility. Flexibility, then, is your term for your career.

But there may be a price for that flexibility. It also affects your money. In order to be able to walk the dog every day, you may accept less money.

A BIGG house means more work

It can go the other way too. Let’s say BIGG success to you means a BIGG house and a fancy car. These things cost money. You will need a career that provides that.

But you also have to accept that you will likely have to work more. You’ll spend more time at work and less time at play.

These two simple examples demonstrate how interdependent the five elements of BIGG success are.

Price versus Terms

There’s a basic principle of negotiation – you get to set the price or the terms but you don’t get to set both. So if you want to live your life on your own terms, BIGG success will set the price.

That’s what we’re seeing in the examples above. But along the way, we’ve discovered that it doesn’t have to be that way. You can have your proverbial cake and eat it too.

Personal growth means less sacrifice

It requires growth – the element of BIGG success we haven’t talked about so far. It requires you to stop thinking like an adult and start seeing the world through the eyes of a child.

It means letting your imagination flow again. And it’s a paradox:

You have to revert to your child-like nature so you can move forward to the life you want.

But imagination alone isn’t enough. It has to be applied. Applied imagination leads to innovation. That’s why we say BIGG success is all about entrepreneuring your life. You have to take charge and innovate to find the happiness you seek.

Finding synergy is the answer!

So you want to walk your dog every day. But you don’t want to make less money.

Is there a way you can work from home? Can you take your dog to work? Is your ideal venture something that involves pets?

These are just a few of the questions you might ask yourself. When you do, you start to find synergy between the five elements of BIGG success.

That’s the BIGG idea behind BIGG success – you don’t have to accept sacrifices. You can find synergies that help you reach BIGG success even faster.

How have you found synergy between the five elements of BIGG success?

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00575-041510.mp3

(Image in today's post by dlnny)

Monthly Archives: April 2010

Milestones Push You to BIGG Success